Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Darius Lakdawalla has an very interesting review article in the Journal of Economic Literature on the Economics of the pharmacuetical industry. Do read the whole thing, but below I have listed some highlights. A model of firm R&D decisions Lakdawalla uses a simple model based on Nordhaus (1969) to derive some important implications about pharmaceutical…
A recent viewpoint from Fendrick and Shope (2018) argues for the need for Precision Benefit Design. Successful implementation of precision medicine will need to address several system-wide challenges, including administrative complexities, the creation of new financing models, and aligning provider- and patient-focused initiatives. The enormous clinical potential of precision medicine sheds light on the critical…
Stan for economists. The state of healthcare in a majority minority state. Will undiagnosed atrial fibrillation become a thing of the past? Does free medical school decrease social justice? A $100,000 heart attack (out-of-pocket with insurance!)
The title of this post comes from a speech from Columbia health policy and management professor Lawrence Brown. For years, Presidents and other politicians have noted that rising health care costs will lead to the collapse of the system. Michael Millenson highlights this state of unending crisis in his Health Affairs blog post titled “Half A…
Innovation in health care often improves quality but also increases cost. That is not always the case. Consider the case of an innovative Bangladeshi physician who was interested in improving care for patients with pneumonia who could not afford the $15,000 cost of the ventilators used in a developing work: However, after a second piece…
Yesterday, I discussed the idea of managed competition in California. One of the original tenets of managed competition was insurers having integrated, mutually exclusive provider networks. This would mean much more consolidation on the provider side. While this could improve quality, there is also a risk that prices could rise. In fact, this is what…
Alain Einthoven is the father of managed competition. In a recent Health Affairs article, he and Laurence C. Baker look ]at managed competition in California and ask whether the standard conception of managed competition needs to be altered. Before we get to the article, we first need to ask a basic question: what is managed competition? The…
“Only those who do nothing make no mistakes” — Joseph Conrad
Paperwork pollution. Graphs: economists vs. epidemiologists. Loneliness is a public health problem. A $122.6 billion market. VR to fight pain?
A recently finished reading Prohibition: A Concise History by W.J. Rorabaugh. The history is interesting throughout and concise indeed at only 133 pages. Some interesting excerpts include: Whenever a substance is banned two things happen. First, the price goes up, and second, the product returns in more concentrated form, or a replacement appears. The high risk…